Cybersecurity remains a looming threat to large-scale financial institutions and regional banks alike. Smaller banks face disproportionate risk with smaller scale security infrastructure and on-hand expertise, yet they face big bank requirements and regulations. The silver lining is that smaller banks are better situated to address the threat — data security is easier to maintain at this level than for larger scale banks — particularly once they add automation to their strategy. Regional banks don’t have bottomless resources, yet they are particularly pressed when it comes to securing invaluable data — doing more with less is key and automation helps solve this problem.
Automation, at a Global Scale
The global market for process automation — which drives efficiencies on annual run-rate costs and straight-through process time, while reducing security risk — is expected to grow to around $50.3 billion by 2020. Looking at automation within the context of cybersecurity alone, over a third of firms currently rely on automation to mitigate cyber threats, according to the Cisco’s 2018 annual cybersecurity report — with the rise of AI and digital-first strategies, the role of automation to proactively mitigate and remediate risk is only expected to heighten.
So, where can you automate?
Intelligent Risk Reporting As regulatory compliance and shifting market developments press regional banks from all directions, rapid response decision-making is an essential part of conducting business. Leading risk executives are adapting capabilities like continuous risk assessment (52% implementation by adapters vs. 38% for non-adapters) and leveraging new technology for instantaneous information (42% implementation by adapters vs. 28% for non-adapters). Banks need to make smart decisions based on real-time data, especially when it comes to security and ever-changing risk profiles. Industry regulations have improved data quality and timeliness of risk reporting, yet effective formatting is still lagging. Digitization has helped replace paper-based reporting to deliver real-time data for proactive business intelligence like root cause analyses and predictive analytics. Managing risk can be accomplished with the right visibility — automated data tools that report on risk power a continuous cycle that constantly identifies new vulnerabilities, reevaluates and updates policies, and implements remediation to help manage the process.
Data Access and Governance Unstructured data comprises the vast majority of digital business assets — about 85% of business data — so ensuring that access is controlled and governed by business “need-to-know” is imperative. Deploying identity and access management (IAM) and privileged access management (PAM) solutions help automate the necessary business rules for ensuring proper data governance and access to your networks and systems. Implementing an IAM and PAM solution or accelerating and filling any gaps you may have with your existing deployments is a core component of data security. In order to implement a complete IAM solution, you need to have an understanding of every distributed system, application, platform, and how each manages entitlements. Implementing effective PAM is also challenging — your firm must understand what privileged accounts exist, who is using them and what the existing workflows and process surrounding them are. Access management rules help ensure security policies are being employed and followed. In the long-term, ongoing management and process alignment are essential and careful consideration must be had to ensure the sustainability of your governance control systems.
Do you know how to leverage automation as part of your regional bank’s data security? Talk to our team of data experts about how you can do more with less.
